MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian investigators said on Monday they were checking information that threats had been made against a Russian newspaper which reported that gay men were being tortured and killed in Chechnya, the TASS news agency reported.

Russia's most famous campaigning newspaper said on Friday it had appealed to the Kremlin to protect its staff after Chechen clerics said the paper faced "retribution" for alleging that gay men in the majority Muslim southern Russian republic were being persecuted.

TASS cited investigators as saying that they had not received any complaints about the persecution of sexual minorities in Chechnya.